Tennessee football: Remembering Jim Chaney’s 5 games vs. Vols, Jeremy Pruitt

3. 2017: No. 7 Georgia Bulldogs at Tennessee Volunteers

A year after the Dobbs-Nail boot game put Tennessee football at its highest point under Butch Jones, this game was a huge nail in the coffin for the Vols. We even officially called for Jones to be fired after this one.

Two weeks before, Jones and offensive coordinator Larry Scott had called the worst game of all time, single-handedly losing a game to the Florida Gators who had 10 players suspended and were led by Jim McElwain. Then they had an ugly win over the UMASS Minutemen, which followed by Jones chiding the media.

That’s against the backdrop of this week’s game, which could have fixed everything. Instead, in front of the Neyland home crowd and donning the Smokey Grays on an afternoon CBS game, everything that was horrendous about the program shone through. The Vols were shut out at home by the Dawgs 41-0.

This game showed a changing of program trajectories. The Vols were en route to their worst season in school history, and Georgia had arrived as a top-notch program under Kirby Smart. Nothing got better for UT after this under Jones.

Grading Jim Chaney’s performance: A-

Believe it or not, it’s hard to give Chaney too much credit for this win. Midway through the second quarter, the Dawgs only had 10 points, and the field goal was set up by a Quinten Dormady interception. It was only after the Vols’ defense completely quit because the offense couldn’t do anything that day that Georgia began scoring. To be fair to Chaney, though, he probably knew that because it had been happening in previous weeks. So he stayed conservative and waited for the defense to quit before unleashing. That conservative attack resulted in 294 rushing yards, and it’s why he got an A- for calling this game.